Does this somehow conflict with the DCMA safe harbor provisions? I thought the deal was that they weren't responsible for the things done on their network as long as they don't know about it.
Forget the DMCA - someone should mention to the fundies that the it's time to for another round of Obscenity lawsuits. If the ISP wants to volunteer that they have enough information to filter[1] for "obscene"[2] pages, then they can have the liability as well, or at lest the "fun" of having to defend against fundies wielding banhammers.
[1] the fact that a perfect filter is impossible isn't relevant - it just has to be good enough to catch "enough" to allow a parent to think they have "protected" their kid from the scary things on the internet.
[2] Finding things on the internet that would qualify ss "obscene" is trivial, especially if someone were to get creative in how they apoply Miller Test style "community standards".
You'd be hardpressed to claim that having information in a database mean they knew about it. That is sort of the whole point. That Youtube video that is copyrighted is in the Yahoo server. But Youtube doesn't know about it.
[1] the fact that a perfect filter is impossible isn't relevant - it just has to be good enough to catch "enough" to allow a parent to think they have "protected" their kid from the scary things on the internet.
[2] Finding things on the internet that would qualify ss "obscene" is trivial, especially if someone were to get creative in how they apoply Miller Test style "community standards".